Douglas Mann - Publications  [selected articles and chapters linked to their titles]

(a) Books

Douglas Mann. Structural Idealism: A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002.

This is a much-revised version of my Ph.D. thesis. It presents a general theory of social and historical explanation, going on to apply this theory to cultural analysis and critique using a number of case studies. Here are my chapter titles:

• 1. The Nature of Social Consciousness: A Theory of Mind
• 2. Intention, Meaning & Structure in Social Explanation
• 3. A Structural Idealist Interpretation of Theories of Deviance
• 4. Reconstructing the Past, A Structural Idealist Approach
• 5. The Search for Depth Meaning as the Essence of Late Modernity
• 6. The End of the Search for Depth Meaning as the Essence of Postmodernity
• 7. A Secret History of the Liquid Body: Image and Counter-Image in 20^th Century Culture [older version]
• 8. The Contribution of Structural Idealism to Cultural Critique

Douglas Mann and G. Elijah Dann eds. Philosophy: A New Introduction. Belmont California: Wadsworth Publishing, 2004.

This introductory reader will combine traditional sources with a substantial amount of recent material. I've contributed five full chapters plus a short section on the environment. Each chapter includes an essay-length introduction pertaining to the general area of philosophy dealt with in it, shorter commentaries on each individual author, along with edited selections. Here's a preliminary summary of my chapters:

Chapter	Features Selections From
1. Introduction	Includes a discussion of why philospohers disagree and a meta-narrative of the history of philosophy
2. The Ancient Greek Origins of Western Thought	Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Plato [Socrates], Aristotle
4. Mind, Body, and Self	Descartes, Ryle, Nagel, Churchland, Hume, Shelley, Goethe, Ortega, Camus, Sartre, Goffman
7. Political Theory	Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Rawls, Mann/Murray, Fukuyama
8. Feminist Theory	Friedan, Firestone, Frye, Gilligan, Okin, hooks, Wolf, Paglia
9. Aesthetics (mostly me, except [brackets])	Romantics, Burke, [Tolstoy], Benjamin, Marcuse, Wolf, Danto, Bloom
10. The Philosophy of Culture	Lasch, Taylor, Unabomber, Marinetti, McLuhan, Kingwell, Hochenedel, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Saul

Doug Mann, Stephen F. Haller, and Heidi Nelson Hochenedel eds. The Medium as Message: A Symposium on Theory, Mass Media, and Popular Culture. Conference Proceedings, University of Windsor. Windsor Ontario: Kabkort Publishing, 2000.

Social and Political Theory

• "A Dialogue Concerning Liberty and Community" (co-written with Malcolm Murray), Dialogue (Canadian Philosophical Review) vol. 40 no. 2 (Spring 2001), 255-277.
• "The Limits of Instrumental Rationality in Social Explanation", Critical Review vol. 13 nos. 1-2 (1999), 165-189.
• "Political Ideology as Theatre in Herodotus", Janus Head vol. 2 no. 2 (Fall 1999), 293-311. Available at: http://www.janushead.org/2-2/dmann.cfm
• "The Supremacy of Nationalism and the Liberal Politics of Identity in the Modern World" (co-written with Nebojsa Kujundzic), forthcoming in The Spectres of Nationalism, to be published by Verso (in tandem with the Belgrade Circle).
• "The 'Terrible Legacy' of Rousseau's Social Contract", Dialogue PST 40/2-3 (April 1998), 65-70.
• "Porn Revisited", The Journal of Social Philosophy vol. 28 no. 1 (Spring 1997), 77-86. [Also Ethics]
• "The World-Machine Clanks On: Organism, Mechanism and Myth-Building in Victorian Social Criticism". Philosophical Writings no. 2 (May 1996), 67-81.
• "Socrates, Individual Conscience, and Raison d'Etat". Dialogue PST vol. 36 no. 2-3 (April 1994), 74-78.
• "The Absolute Spirit Comes to Old Sarum: Hegel on the English Reform Bill". Clio vol. 23 no. 3 (Spring 1994), 247-256.

• "A Critical Re-Reading of Heidegger's Theory of Moods", Phenomenological Inquiry vol. 21, 1997.
• "Existentialism and Marxism" (A Dialogue). Brock Review vol. 2 no. 2 (1993), 207-219.
• "Does Husserl Have a Philosophy of History in The Crisis of European Sciences?" The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology vol. 23 no. 2 (May 1992), 156-166.

• "Reconstructing the Past, A Structural Idealist Approach", Clio vol. 27 no. 2 (Winter 1998), 221-249.
• "The Body as an 'Object' of Historical Knowledge", Dialogue (Canadian Philosophical Review) vol. 35 (Fall 1996), 753-776. [Also fits under Philosophy of Culture and Continental Philosophy]
• "Collingwood's Hermeneutic of Acts and Events in Historical Explanation". Eidos vol. 11 no. 1-2 (June/December 1993), 19-43.

• "A Manifesto of the 21st Century Academic Proletariat in North America" (co-written with Heidi Hochenedel), The Journal of Social Philosophy vol. 34, no. 1 (2003), 111-124.
• "Remarks on Academic Discourse", Journal of Thought, Summer 1999, 9-14.
• "Truth, The X-Files, and the Postmodern Condition", The Mid-Atlantic Almanack vol. 7 (1998), 17-27.
• "The Unabomber, the Economics of Happiness, and the End of the Millennium" (co-written with Nebojsa Kunjundzic), Ends and Means vol. 3 no. 1 (Autumn 1998), 11-20.Web address: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cpts/cpts/article5.hti

• "The Ecology of Mind", Alexandria vol. 5, 2000, 27-40. [Also fits under Ethics]
• "Scepticism from North of the Wall: Undermining the Empire of Reason" (on Hume), Philosophical Writings no. 6 (September 1997), 37-57.
• "Kant's Theory of Time and the Unity of the Self". The South African Journal of Philosophy vol. 15 no. 2 (May 1996), 51-59.
• "The Question of Truth: A Philosophical Drama". Kinesis vol. 22 no. 1 (Summer 1995), 25-62.

Social and Political Theory

• "On the Impotence of Cultural Post-Feminism" (co-written with Heidi Hochenedel), Social Philosophy Today, Volume 17, ed. Cheryl Hughes & James Wong. Charlottesville: Philosophy Documentation Centre, 2003.

• "Creativity", in the Dictionary of Existentialism, ed. Haim Gordon, Greenwood Press, 1999, 97-100.
• "History", in the Dictionary of Existentialism, ed. Haim Gordon, Greenwood Press, 1999, 181-4.
• "The Philosophy of History", in the Dictionary of Existentialism, Greenwood Press, 1999, 360-3.
• "What is Postmodernism?", Philosophy Today (Society for Applied Philosophy Newsletter) No.23, September 1996.

• "Evil Demons, Saviours, and Simulacra in The Matrix" (co-written with Heidi Hochenedel), in The Medium as Message: A Symposium on Theory, Mass Media, and Popular Culture, eds. Doug Mann, Stephen F. Haller, and Heidi Nelson Hochenedel, Conference Proceedings, University of Windsor, February 18-19, 2000 (Kabkort Publishing), 144-180. [refereed].
• "The Klingons as Homeric Heroes", in The Medium as Message: A Symposium on Theory, Mass Media, and Popular Culture, eds. Doug Mann, Stephen F. Haller, and Heidi Nelson Hochenedel, Conference Proceedings, University of Windsor, February 18-19, 2000, 232-242.

• “The Decline and Fall of Academia,” Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Thursday September 4, 2003.
• “Global Warming Caused Blackout” (on global warming & the causes of modern environmental problems), KW Record (Insight Section), Tuesday August 26, 2003.
• "Let the People be Heard", KW Record (1000-word Insight Section essay on the need for proportional representation in parliament), Saturday August 4, 2001.
• "Nuclear Family in Crisis", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (three-quarters page article in Perspectives/Insight Section), Saturday May 8, 1999.
• "Clearly Canadian", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Wednesday March 10, 1999.
• "Russia Needs Controls" (on the economic crisis in Russia), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Wednesday September 23, 1998.
• "It's a Closed Shop", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Saturday August 1, 1998.
• "Reefer Madness" (on legalizing pot), KW Record (Insight Section), Saturday July 11, 1998.
• "Chrome is King" (on the social effects of the automobile), KW Record (Insight Section), Sat. June 27, 1998.
• "Winds of Change" (on social democracy), KW Record (Insight Section), Thursday April 23, 1998.
• "How to save the university system" (half-page opinion piece on revamping the Canadian university system), London Free Press, Monday, October 6, 1997.
• "Linguistic Abuse" (on ideological language and the usefulness of dictionaries), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Saturday December 28, 1996.
• "Electronic Cottage" (half-page article on computers, the Internet, etc.), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Saturday September 7, 1996.
• "Corporate Poison", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Friday April 19, 1996.
• "Marxism Lives" (a class analysis of government cuts), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Friday January 5, 1996.
• "Tenacious Myth" (on religious belief), KW Record (Insight Section), Saturday September 23, 1995.
• "A Dangerous Reality" (a summary of post-modernism), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Wednesday July 26, 1995.
• "In Praise of Interference" (an attack on laissez-faire), KW Record (Insight Section), Saturday May 27, 1995.
• "The Left is Dead" (on the decline of radical politics), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Saturday March 18, 1995. Reprinted in the Calgary Herald March 21, 1995 as "'Radicals' today are just greedy hypocrites: Let's hear it for the Old Left, says an angry graduate student fed up with 'yuppie leftists'"; also in the Kamloops Daily News.
• "Romance Suffers" (on language, love, and social change), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight Section), Saturday February 4, 1995.
• "God is Dead", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight section), Monday December 12, 1994. Reprinted in the Windsor Star Saturday December 31, 1994 as "Is God Dead - or changed?".
• "New Age Workaholics", Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight section), Saturday November 26, 1994.
• "Big Brother is Leering" (on sexual harassment), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight section), Friday October 28, 1994.
• "Critique is Overdue" (on social changes over the last few decades), Kitchener-Waterloo Record (Insight section), Saturday October 1, 1994. Reprinted in the Calgary Herald October 20, 1994 as "Signs of the times point to new changes, real dangers".
• "The Real Picture" (on feminism), KW Record (Insight section), Saturday August 20, 1994.
• "Puff the Magic Addiction", Id October 17-31, 1996.
• "Some Millennial Angst", Id May 30-June 12, 1996.
• "The Unabomber vs. Talking Heads", Id April 18-May 1 1996.
• "A Message to Mike Harris" (on market-based ideologies), Id June 8-June 21, 1995.
• "Reconsidering the Beauty Myth", Id September 8-21, 1994.
• "Truth, Justice, The X-Files, and the Postmodern Condition", Chaos Review Dec. 9-22, 1994.
• "The Best of the Tube", my "Kultur" column in Chaos Review October 21 - November 10, 1994.

• "Forgetting the Lessons of History: The Fate of Philosophy in the 20th Century": conference paper under consideration for the conference proceedings for the 18th International Social Philosophy Conference.
• "Yet Another Dialogue Concerning Natural Religion" (co-written with G. E. Dann and Heidi Hochenedel): conference paper.
• David Cronenberg's Somatic Dialectic, Chapter 1.

(f) Current Projects

Douglas Mann and Heidi Hochenedel. Alternate Realities: Explorations of Expanded Visions in Contemporary Cinema and Television. Full manuscript under review at Oxford University Press.

• This collection of fifteen original essays offers philosophical interpretations of films and TV shows dealing with “alternate realities.” Complete and under review. I contributed papers on The Matrix (co-written), Waking Life, comic book and video game culture (including Run Lola Run), The X-Files, Star Trek, and a four-chapter (100 page) monograph on “David Cronenberg’s Somatic Dialectic.” About 111,000 words long.

Douglas Mann. Understanding Society: Modern Social Theory from a Canadian Perspective. In preparation for Oxford UP.

• After being asked to do so, I submitted a detailed outline for a textbook for undergraduate social theory courses to Oxford University Press Canada in December 2003. It was reviewed and accepted in February 2004, and I signed a contract in June 2004. The book will cover a broad range of Canadian, European & American theorists, with chapters on functionalism, materialist approaches, critical theory, human agency, symbolic approaches, feminism & multiculturalism, postmodernism, globalization, Canadian theorists, and three others. As of November 2004 I’ve written about 200 pages. I hope to see it in print in two years.

Douglas Mann and Heidi Hochenedel eds. Culture: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Proposal under review.

• A detailed 65-page, 30,000 word proposal for a comprehensive text/reader on all major aspects of contemporary culture under review at Oxford University Press U.S. It contains 14 topical chapters: high vs. pop culture, grand theories, Marxism/critical theory, postmodernism, gender, everyday life, subcultures, multiculturalism, technology, communications, sex & the body, spirituality, film & TV, pop music & literature.